L'Arche in the UK

There are eleven L’Arche Communities in the UK. The first Community opened in 1974 in Kent and our newest Community opened in Manchester in 2013. In each Community, we offer high quality, person-centred support for adults with learning disabilities.

Reflecting the diversity, uniqueness and differing needs of each person, some individuals are supported in their own homes for a few hours per week, while others are supported twenty-four hours a day in our assisted living services.

L’Arche Communities are vibrant places of welcome, belonging and celebration. As an organisation we are committed to providing people with learning disabilities the opportunities and support they need to lead fulfilling and empowered lives.

L'Arche UK Leadership Structure

National Board:

Aedan MacGreevy (Chair)
Roland Clark (Treasurer)

National Leadership Team:

Kathleen Boyle (Deputy National Leader)
Anthony Kramers (Regional Leader - Scotland & North England)
James Cuming (Regional Leader - Wales & South England)
Sarah Harrison (National Assistants' Co-ordinator)
Louise Carter (Formation Co-ordinator)
Debbie Walker (National Finance Co-ordinator and Company Secretary)
Heather Coogan (Communications & Fundraising Co-ordinator)

Community Leaders/Directors:

Sonja Jones (Bognor Regis)
Des Kennedy (Brecon)
Kirsty MacCrimmon (Edinburgh)
Gary Deplacido (Highland)
David Hockley (Ipswich)
Liis Revell (Kent)
Carol Carney (Liverpool)
Lucy Winter (London)
Nem Tomlinson (Manchester - Acting Community Leader)
Caireen Detain (Nottingham Project)
Michael Sheppard (Preston)

Latest

Community Leader (Director), L'Arche Brecon

Up to £40,000. The Community Leader (Director) is responsible for ensuring that their community is living fully the Mission of L’Arche in its four dimensions (community life, service, spiritual life and outreach).
Statement for L’Arche members and supporters
Accessibility statement
Choose life, not loneliness, this Easter

The sharing of lives in L’Arche contains the DNA of a better way for our world to be. You can invest in this kind of future by making a donation to L’Arche this Easter.

L'Arche globally

Created in France in 1964 by Jean Vanier, L'Arche is a group of over 130 worldwide communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together in community. Volunteers and care workers are coming from all over the world to provide support to people with learning disabilities. All faiths are welcomed.

Live-in assistants

L'Arche live-in assistants live and work in our Communities with and alongside people with learning disabilities. They provide them care and support. Apply here.
Join us as an assistant

Spend a year as an assistant and we will give you an experience of difference that will change your life.
L'Arche in the UK

There are eleven L’Arche Communities based across the UK, where persons with and without learning disabilities live together. Volunteers and care workers are providing support. They try to promote Jean Vanier philosophy. All faiths are welcomed.
What we do

In a world that values winning, L’Arche Communities are places where people with and without learning disabilities can discover who they are and not just what they can do.
Statement from L'Arche, following the verdict at the inquest into the death of Joe Ulleri

Speaking outside the Coroner’s Court in Manchester, Kevin Coogan, Community Leader of L’Arche Manchester, read out the following statement on behalf of L’Arche.
Summer in the Forest

Summer in the Forest is a full-length feature film about our founder Jean Vanier and the L’Arche communities in Trosly, France and Bethlehem. It tells how two L’Arche communities, though quite different from those in the UK, share our common values, and shows how people with learning disabilities and assistants / care workers that support them are living together.
L’Arche statement following the recent BBC Panorama documentary and the release of the CQC report into the detainment of people with learning disabilities

The Panorama programme aired by the BBC on Wednesday 22nd May showing the abuse of people with learning disabilities, and the recently published CQC report revealing the detainment of people with learning disabilities and autism in ATUs (Assessment and Treatment Units), once again reveals the appalling mistreatment and abuse experienced by some of society’s most vulnerable people.
Supported living

While some individuals wish to live in a home with other people, others prefer to be supported to live independently. At L’Arche we help people to choose a way of life that feels right for them, and for their families.
Support Assistant, L'Arche London

40 hours per week. Permanent contract.
Shared living

Across our eleven Communities in the UK we offer a range of high quality, person-centred residential support to more than two hundred individuals with learning disabilities.